


Three Faces

by orphan_account



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-22
Updated: 2010-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-09 15:57:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Because you're going to be king. A great king, one day, and I'm going to make sure of it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Faces

**Author's Note:**

> An exploration of those aspects of Merlin's character we don't see very much, things like aggression, possessiveness, lust and sexuality, experience, wisdom. Merlin is a little older here and has been in Arthur's service a bit longer. With thanks to ella_bane for being my muse!

1.

"You killed him."

That's the first thing Arthur says, when the body has fallen back to earth. Not, _you're a sorcerer_, or _all this time you've been lying to me_, or, in true obtuse Arthur fashion, _what did you do?_

"You killed him."

"Arthur," you say, gasping for breath, explanations and apologies burning the tip of your tongue. You've had years to imagine this moment and everything you might say to shield yourself from the look in Arthur's eyes, but then you always thought he would be looking at you when the time came, and he isn't. 

He is standing next to the body, back towards you, gazing down at it. The man gazes back blankly, everything open. You didn't know the spell would work so quickly. 

Power is still thudding through your veins and you try to breathe slowly so the clearing won't ring with the sound of it, your painful exhalations, your sudden fear.

"Why?" 

"I had to keep it secret, Arthur, I had to," you say desperately.

"No. Why kill him?"

The question throws you.

"He was going to hurt you. And it's my job. To protect you."

You think you hear a laugh, that jump of the voice that tells you Arthur has heard something absurd. Insulting. But Arthur hasn't moved an inch, hasn't thrown his head back, goadingly baring his throat. He is still. The point of his sword thoughtlessly pierces the soil where it hangs from a loosened grip.

"You. Protect _me_," he says flatly. There passes a moment of taut consideration. "Like this?"

"What do you want me to say?" you answer, and finally Arthur turns around, comes right up to you until your noses are a whisper from meeting. He grips your arm, engulfs it in his larger hand.

"Is this what you do for me?" he demands.

"Yes." 

"Kill people?"

"Yes. Sometimes. I don't always have a choice, Arthur! They want to see you dead!"

"And you stop them," Arthur says roughly, testing, putting pieces together in ways you can't see. "Like this."

"Yes."

"Because it's your job."

You bite down on the reasons that swell to your mouth: _Because you can't die/Because it's my destiny/Because Albion needs you/Because I do_, the real reasons that you've come to learn over the years, that you've had to make peace with.

Swallowing, you say, "Because you're going to be king. A great king, one day, and I'm going to make sure of it."

There are other reasons, ones you can't make peace with. You think Arthur does not need to know those ones exist, though there is proof enough lying on the ground, blood freezing on its lips, its fingertips. Pride comes before a fall, you thought as the body had crumpled, a blaze of anger turning to satisfaction, leveling out into uncertainty.

Arthur looks at you for a long moment. He hoists his sword and sends it home into the scabbard.

"We're going to talk about this. Not out here, it's not safe, but we will speak of it when we get back. Understand?"

Home, you think. The word resounds through you, deep layers of belonging and purpose twisting together, a security you'll build with your own hands. _HomeHomeHome_. If this is what Arthur feels for Camelot then he will understand. There is nothing more important to him than his kingdom.

You nod in agreement, and let Arthur lead the way.

"Come on," he says.

The light in the clearing is white and bright and good; it falls effortlessly on Arthur's broad shoulders, on his tall and kingly frame. You follow that sight across the clearing, back to the waiting horses, past the indistinct shape cast on the ground; you find you can't take your eyes off it. You find you don't want to.

At the edge of the clearing the air is dim, sweeter somehow, and as you reach the trees you finally catch your breath.

 

2.

You know it's wrong, but you love the taste of Arthur's prick. 

You hadn't even known it was something people did together; you'd never kissed anyone in your whole life before Camelot. But Arthur was sprawled back, bare beneath your eyes and hard, and you were struck with the sudden urge to put your mouth on it. To suck at him as if it were the only way to feel him properly, the way to get closer to Arthur than he would normally allow. 

His prick was hot and large and awkward in your mouth and oh, may all the gods forgive you, your eyes had stung and your hands had shaken. Arthur had gone quiet. 

Now when you look at him you remember what it felt like, and your tongue aches for more.

You won't get any more. Arthur had been drunk that night, and so were you, though on far less wine, and you'd swayed into him clumsily when you tried to unlace his shirt. 

"Merlin, go to bed," Arthur had said. "You're completely more usual than useless."

"Says the drunkard," had been your witty reply. "Who's going to take your clothes off?"

"I'll sleep in 'em. And then I won't have to put more on the — in the — when I wake up."

"No," you said, "no, I'm pretty sure that's a bad idea. Look, why don't you lie down and I'll do it, Sire. I'll do it."

Arthur had been happy to lie down, and you'd been happy to see him there, all that constant tension unwrapped from his limbs so that he was comfortable for once, so that he was easy. It looked better, you decided. Seeing Arthur idle and content and humming bits of the minstrel's song into the air, it made you happy. 

You'd pulled off his shirt and knelt down close over him to figure out the laces of his breeches and while you were there you sank into the smell of him, low and rich, Arthur, your Arthur, and you were happy. You smiled at his humming and you hummed too, pressing your smile against his stomach, against his skin.

You loved the taste of him. It rushed all through you like wine, like words. You drew his prick in and out of your mouth and sucked down on him hard, pushing your tongue against him shamelessly, hopefully.

Afterwards he'd stared at you and you had finished yourself off, shoving your breeches down and biting your lip until you'd wrung yourself dry. With dark eyes Arthur had trailed his fingers slowly through the mess you'd left on his stomach, his gaze never leaving yours, his hand moving carefully. You leaned down and kissed his hand, the flat back of it, like you'd kiss a king.

He let you sleep beside him in bed that night, and you woke to find him pressed up against you, an incomplete melding of two forms, and you thought he probably hadn't done it before, shared a bed with someone. It wasn't quite right. But you always slept on your back, the way Arthur slept when he was wounded, and stretched out on his side he almost fitted against your bones.

You rose early and fetched some water. He washed and complained of a headache and looked anxiously at you over his shoulder to say, "And Merlin. Anything that was — said, last night. It can't happen again. I trust you will forget it."

You looked at him with blood in your cheeks and tried to smile at his uncomfortable face. "Can't think what you mean," you said. "Will there be anything else?"

"No," said Arthur, and you turned to stoke the fire. 

It was considered wrong in Camelot, to lie with another man. Uther had all kinds of rules that bound you up, that made you hide the things which could keep Arthur safe, make Arthur strong. But Arthur believed in Camelot's laws and so you couldn't say anything.

"I'll need you here after drill," Arthur said once he was dressed, pausing at his chamber door. "In the meantime — well, I'm sure you have chores."

"Nearly always," you answered lightly.

You waited as he left. You shifted some kindling on the hearth. You watched the flames jumping about and licked the warm skin of your lip, there where you'd bitten down and the soft flesh was tender.

 

3.

You've never been so tired. 

A storm has rolled in, dark and thundery, turning the early afternoon into an unexpected night. Rain comes down hard and you climb up to the window to see it pour down on the lower town, interrupting the puffing streams of smoke from chimney and forge. The air smells wonderous so high up, and you stay there taking lazy gulps of it, neglecting the piles of work left to you by Gaius this morning. He isn't here, and if you weren't so tired perhaps you'd risk using magic to make it all go away.

You're daydreaming about taking a nap when you hear the door bang. Guilt leaps up and you slow your headlong rush to the main chamber only when you reach the steps and see that it's Arthur. Your heart gives a funny hop, as though you're pleased or afraid or caught, when he looks at you without speaking.

The table is covered over with herbs. It's your day's work, or perhaps more than that, and in the thick moist air you can smell the gardens and the forests. You'd been tying the herbs into bundles, stripping them back, labelling them, readying them to be something new. Arthur stops there and braces his hip against the table edge, and brushes the pad of his thumb over a bent head of lavender.

"Hello," you say, warily, coming down into the room proper. You're not sure you haven't forgotten something.

Arthur flicks his gaze up to you and back down to the plants. He plucks softly at a stem of yellow flowers.

"They're for Gaius," you tell him. "For his medicines."

"Strange," Arthur comments. "That they end up smelling so foul once he brings them to me. If they start off like this."

"That's because he mixes them with sheep's eyes and bits of toad."

Arthur grimaces. "Thank you, Merlin. That will be very helpful next time I have to take one of his draughts."

"Sorry," you say and you know you sound unrepentent. You wait a bit as the rain drums distantly on the stone, marking the passing of time, and then you say, "Did you want something?" because you're too weary to play games. Working for both Gaius and Arthur, learning your magic and keeping everyone alive and unsuspicious at the same time — it can all be a bit much. With every year that passes the weight of secrets grows a little heavier, a little larger. On days like this you feel as though they're grinding you away from the inside, emptying out a space where a boy used to live.

Arthur shifts aside a length of twine and lifts another sprig: rough green leaves and a little cluster of bells. "What's this one?" he asks.

"Comfrey," you answer absently. Gaius uses it on bones when they're broken.

"Hm. And this?" 

_Rue_, you think, and then you remember to wonder where this is going, and why Arthur is showing an interest. You say, "Some sort of grass?"

Arthur frowns. He picks up something else, holding it up with a wordless query.

"More grass? Special grass, special, tasty...grass." You widen your eyes innocently when Arthur shoots you a suspicious look. "What?"

"You're making that up," he accuses. "You don't really know any of them, do you?"

"No," you agree, "I don't know anything. Gaius just makes me sweep the bits off the floor."

"So you couldn't tell me what this is?"

It's lemon balm, dried and woven together, its summer-white flowers long gone. It's to be crushed and used in a tisane.

You make a hapless sort of face and Arthur says, "Merlin, even _I_ know what that is. Gaius gives it to my father all the time."

You shrug stupidly.

It seems to make Arthur angry. 

"What about these," he goes on, gesturing to other piles, things you brought back yesterday from the woods. "You recognise mushrooms, don't you? After all, you do spend hours picking them. And those, over there, Merlin, they appear to be _seeds_; Heaven knows where you find them. Ah, and these, these are —" he falters, peering into a bowl you're sure contains macerating violets. "Petals," he finishes.

"If you say so," you reply. "Gaius says he wouldn't trust me with a remedy for a sore toe."

"Does he."

"Yep. You know me," you say blithely. You shrug again, and this time Arthur reaches out, whip-quick, and catches your wrist. He pulls you forward, and pushes back your sleeve, baring the white underside of your arm. 

"Yes, I do know you," he says, and presses his mouth to your wrist, and up along the gully of your hand to where the skin is roughened by hard work. You can feel him breathing you in and abruptly you know what he is finding there: the ghosts of honey and vinegar and wine; mint thyme, red cherry, white willow. Hours of work. Years of it.

"Better than you think," Arthur murmurs. "Stop _hiding_." 

Your eyelids fall closed. Your fingers touch his cheek. His mouth is soft, and you think, perhaps, you have done enough for today.


End file.
